Chromosome aberrations are well recognised to play an important role as a cause for diseases, not least as a cause for malignant diseases. Detection of such aberration is, therefore, an important target for novel diagnostic tools. Well known techniques known in the arts of molecular biology and chromosome analyses are thus currently applied for detection of these important causes of diseases. So far, however, a fast, convenient, cheap and user-friendly test which allows for widespread and routine detection of chromosome aberrations has not been available.
According to i.a. the international patent application, publication no. WO 93/24652 (ref. 1) it has been found that peptide nucleic acids hybridise fast, selectively and strongly to nucleic acids such as, for example, chromosomes or nucleic acids derived from chromosomes.
According to the international patent application, publication no. WO 97/18325 (ref. 2) i.a. chromosome aberrations can be detected by hybridising peptide nucleic acids to chromosomes or fragments thereof followed by detection of the binding pattern of the peptide nucleic acids.
An area of particular interest regarding chromosome aberration are the so called breakpoints that have been demonstrated in numerous cases to be specifically linked to the development of malignant diseases.